CIM Delivers On The Promise Of Unified Messaging
By Melissa Prusher, TOPCALL Corporation
When the telephony landscape changed and businesses were promised new
convergence-based communication services such as unified messaging on a
platform that would offer the utmost in reliability, scalability and
performance, IT professionals were stoked by the promises of the new
communication revolution. Although unified messaging (UM) burst on the scene
in the early 90s, widespread adoption hasn't happened yet. The use of
limited proprietary hardware and software lessened UM's impact and kept
the systems limited and even awkward to use.
Unified messaging touted the ability to deliver fax, voice mail, e-mail
and video into a single point of management, generally the e-mail inbox,
with retrieve, reply and send capabilities that users could access from
anywhere in the world using a telephone or any Web-enabled device. Ideally,
UM would offer the enterprise a new technology that would increase
organizational productivity while improving customer service and
responsiveness. But for many, the UM model simply didn't work.
What's The Holdup?
The major bottleneck to integrating a UM solution was the components
required to get the system up and running, in addition to the costs of
maintaining the infrastructure. Enterprises needed to purchase
communications software and hardware, directory services hardware and
software and yearly maintenance contracts not to mention installation and
configuration costs. Businesses also needed to plan for employing messaging
administrators, training costs for help desk staff and lost productivity for
both scheduled and unscheduled downtime. Most businesses simply didn't
have the staffing resources or an adequate knowledge base to maximize the
features and functions promised by vendors or service providers. On top of
being faced with costly updates to scale the systems to keep pace with
rapidly expanding enterprises, integration wasn't as easy as promised and
in many cases, the technology simply didn't work. Coupled with the
different methods, architecture and equipment from a variety of vendors,
businesses were confused by the lack of unification in the technology. But
the biggest holdup to integrating a UM solution into the technology tool box
for many businesses was that users found there was little to no value in the
new system ' a result of the people's resistance to change.
While many analysts say unified messaging isn't at the top of most
users' shrinking shopping list, businesses are still looking to technology
to enhance their customer relations, maximize productivity and reap the
promises of convergence. Due to an increasing number of enterprises
transacting with customers and business partners via the Web, worldwide
e-commerce revenues are predicted to grow from $145 billion in 1999 to $7.9
trillion in 2004, according to research from GartnerGroup. Today, more than
ever, businesses are relying on technology to support the move from
traditional contact to multimedia and multimodal contact supported by UM
technologies with the expectation it will increase their employee
productivity and enhance the overall customer experience.
The Value In A Value-Added Solution
As margins on traditional services are eroding and competition has grown
fierce among ISPs, telecoms and cable providers, service providers recognize
that enhancing business communications via the enablement of value-added
applications is what will keep their business afloat.
Enter customer interaction management (CIM), the cr'me de la cr'me in
value-added solutions that offers innovation coupled with improvements in
the ways we can contact each other in real-time or otherwise ' using
devices we are already familiar with. Multichannel customer interaction
management software allows contact centers, enterprises and service
providers the ability to support and automate virtually every aspect of
their business communications. At the same time, interaction management
offers providers a very lucrative method of enlarging profits and scope of
influence.
Research firm Ovum acknowledges that 'UM is the foundation for all
future personal communication services' as do many communication
technology innovators. CIM builds on the premise of unified messaging, but
truly delivers on value-add by offering more ways of assisting customers
while allowing a wider range of business customers. UM was initially geared
for businesses that either had a significant mobile workforce or were aiming
to increase productivity by eliminating the number of inboxes workers needed
to clear during the day, leaving more time to accomplish core
responsibilities. While CIM also addresses those needs, the technology now
extends to contact centers and mission-critical uses identified in a CRM
strategy.
Customer interaction management applications allow for additional
functionality that was limited by initial UM offerings. Through the
expanding technology, businesses can realize timely delivery of invoices,
payment and orders, which aids in reducing payment periods and costs of
doing business. CIM integrates easily and uses existing infrastructure to
maximize investments and minimize change (applications, business data,
networks, etc.). CIM even leverages information that already exists in
databases to provide intelligence to the technology. Automated delivery of
information from applications avoids the need for manual distribution of
information by assistants, clerks and administrative staff. For the road
warriors, mobile access to documents keeps them in touch with the central
office and allows for greater customer service and support, leading to
better customer satisfaction.
Getting A Bang For Your Technology Buck
With budget slashing and cost-saving initiatives the norm in today's
business climate, users are not willing to budget IT dollars based solely on
a technology's appeal. The enterprise today is looking for innovation that
will offer them a substantial return on their investment (ROI). Interaction
management delivers on the promise of convergence, integration and ROI,
contributing to the major growth of value-add and CIM. While time saving is
clearly a major soft-return, businesses realize when integrating CIM
technology there is also the opportunity to impact the bottom line.
Most obvious is the headcount savings an interaction management solution
offers based on self-service applications that can handle basic customer
inquiries. The benefits of using a single system also allow for multilingual
applications. Now, CRM/ERM solutions can communicate in different languages,
meaning they can communicate with wireless users through SMS and communicate
to telephone users through regular voice messaging. Businesses can also
realize a productivity increase based on computer-telephony software that
manages incoming and outgoing customer service, marketing and sales calls
more efficiently. Unified messaging is used for automated outbound message
delivery such as confirmations and document requests, as well as providing a
central inbox for multimedia customer service requests. Accuracy of data
increases based on pre-filled forms generated from caller-ID information.
Screen pops allow forms in applications to be pre-filled with caller
information such as purchase history, billing address, shipping address and
account number. This automation replaces manual entry that reduces the
chance for errors. By using fax server capabilities, companies can eliminate
the need for manual fax machines, reducing employees' time and maintenance
costs, which can be significant for large companies with hundreds of fax
machines.
However, ROI should not be thought of in terms of cost-cutting alone.
Arthur Rosenberg, an industry analyst with The Unified-View, notes that ROI
is a result of doing what the customer expects of you, thereby increasing
retention, and ultimately profits.
'ROI has to be looked at not from how you're saving money, but how
efficiently you can communicate with your customers,' he explains.
'Cost-cutting has limits ' there's only so much you can trim. But
using technology to increase your profits is truly limitless. The customer
couldn't care less whether or not you've instituted cost-cutting
measures. But if you do a good job communicating, you just might get more
business.
'Traditional customer analysis would look at the business side of the
transaction ' what was purchased, how much and when. CIM offers a solution
that can analyze the communication activity and correlate that communication
with the business transaction. When you look at ROI from a perspective
outside of reducing costs and saving time and realize that ROI comes from
retaining or attracting new customers, you've added an unlimited resource
to your bottom line.'
'If you don't factor in the potential for improvement, you may find
yourself in a downward spiral, focusing on not losing instead of winning,'
adds Denis Pombriant, research director, CRM for the Aberdeen Group (www.aberdeen.com). 'As long as your
mindset and the tools you use focus on the transaction at hand or how to
conduct your business faster and cheaper, you're making your business a
market share game. At some point, you need to protect your share of market
and you don't necessarily do that by driving the hardest bargain. You do
that by cultivating your customers, examining their wants that you can
collate and examine for evolving trends. By looking at a 'return on
relationship,' an organization gets a head start on the marketplace. That
kind of proactivity ' sustaining relationships, gathering information and
providing information ' is the customer lifetime value that goes into the
kind of metrics that define what the relationship is.'
Interaction management delivers on the initial promises by UM gurus. The
technology offers true unification by significantly reducing disorder caused
by too many messages on different devices. Through the technology,
administrators can centrally manage and monitor all contact methods through
a single system, offering businesses both financial and productivity
savings. At the same time, the technology offers a significant tool to
develop and enhance customer relationships by retaining some of that extra
margin as a bottom-line benefit.
The convergence of telephony and Internet technologies boosted value-add
offerings and ultimately had a hand in raising the bar for communication
services. Interaction management has reached the bar by delivering on the
promises initially laid out by UM innovators and is the obvious next step in
a natural progression for communication technologies. Interaction management
is a sure-fire tool for businesses to enhance customer relations and improve
their business processes. At long last, the communication revolution finally
has arrived.
Melissa Prusher is a freelance writer and an account supervisor for
TOPCALL Corporation. TOPCALL (www.topcall.com)
provides end-to-end delivery of interaction management and unified
communication solutions. The company offers communication products, global
support services and onsite consulting.
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